Re: Computer moderated PBeM games From: tenny@ootool.dec.com (Dave Tenny) Date: Mon, 17 Dec 1990 15:57:59 +0000 In article <12759@medusa.cs.purdue.edu>, sjc@cs.purdue.EDU (Steve Chapin) writes... >In article <637@amix.commodore.com>, skrenta@amix.commodore.com (Rich Skrenta) writes: >> I'm curious as to why there aren't more computer moderated pbem games available >> on the net... Well I'm certainly glad to see interest in this :-) Several years ago, I wrote a PBEM which was played on a private network. It's possible this game is going to become available from a startup game house to the world, but I don't know when. Meanwhile, I'm starting my second PBeM effort, with commercial intent. If you wonder why they aren't available on the internet, chances are it has something to do with commercial aspects of running the game. I'm trying to learn more about how the internet can be used and what it will cost me to run games through it. I'm not a unix or net wizard at all, so it's all new to me. If anybody has tips, I'm certainly interested in them. The second reason you don't see many games is that the better the game, the more work it is. Writing good rules and player guides can be a huge amount of work, let alone actually writing and debugging the code. I've seen evidence of several games kicking around for free on the net, no doubt run by people at universities with sufficient resources available. Most of these efforts can't take too many players, either because of software restrictions (read limitations), or lack of resources to accomodate too many people. If you're really driven, there are sources available for games like Galactic Bloodshed and other PBeM's. They're in rec.sources.games or some such. Meanwhile, I fully intend to deliver my next game. The last one was a tremendous success (no doubt because it was free to players), and had about 300 players over a 3 year period, from a limited network. We've had 25 games to date, varying in speeds from a frantic day-long game, to year-long slow games. A lot of fun. The next game isn't free, but it will be available to the public, unlike the first. If you want to be added to my mailing list, send me mail with your enet and usmail addresss. One caution though, it'll be at least June 1991 before I'm ready for field test and that's optimistic, so you won't hear from me before then. I'm talking about vaporware now, but I've only had the machine I'm writing the game on for three weeks. I have every intention of delivering, and experience in having done so in the past. Apologies for the pseudo-ad for vaporware. Really, I'm a long way from being a commercial endeavor, and I'm looking for help on the topic which triggered my reply. Namely, what are the factors in running PBeM's on the internet (and commercial nets too if you know anything about it). Thanks for any data. Email if your comments aren't suitable to the topic, thanks. Dave Tenny Up